Flicker
by Anonymous Character
Summary: Her mother is dead. Her father beats her. She is rescued by an unlikely stranger. And the oddest part? She knows you better than you know yourself.


**_DISCLAIMER: I own nothing that has the original Stephenie Meyer trademark._**

Bella Age 4

I shot up in bed, the lights flickering dangerously as I let go of the remainder of my dream. There was a noise downstairs, Renee was screaming. Hadn't she been in the room a moment ago? I couldn't remember. What if she saw me flicker? Was that why she was screaming?

The stairs didn't squeak when I made my way to the living room, but I still felt like I was being loud. My breathing was hagr- harg- no, haggard. That's the one. I was very cold, and I could feel the blood draining down from my face. I knew that I must have looked as pale as a ghost. Renee hadn't stopped yelling, but now Charlie was shouting back at her. It couldn't have been good. Kneeling at the bottom of the stairs, I caught the tail end of their conversation.

"I refuse to live under the same roof as that, that _thing_ upstairs. _I am leaving, Charlie._" That was Renee. Was she talking about me?

"The hell you are! I make all of the damn money in this family! I feed you and that brat, I cloth the both of you. I even put up with all your ridiculous little _hobbies!_ The only way you'd get out of this is if you were BURIED!" Charlie wasn't happy. I wasn't either. Mommy was leaving, and Daddy was threatening her, and then wet streaks were getting in my hair. The front door opened and slammed shut, and I scurried to the window. Renee was storming out of the driveway, onto the road.

She shouldn't have done that. The big truck wasn't going to stop. Why couldn't she see the truck? It was going to hit her! And it did. Red splattered the road, outlining the place where Renee lay. She didn't get up. From the window I could see the light reflecting of of her glassy, still open eyes and... I did nothing. Charlie didn't go outside. I could hear him in the other room, but I couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying. It didn't matter. I was still trying to make sense of what I saw. Mommy wasn't coming home.

Footsteps in the doorway. The laughing/crying stopped, and Charlie was yelling again. At me. He picked me up by the collar like a rag-doll and slammed me back against the wall. I didn't bother to try and fight him. I was only four, and Charlie had experience. He'd done it before, though not to me or Renee. I only knew about it because I knew everyone. Just like I knew that Renee hadn't really come from California like she'd told him. She wasn't part albino, either. And Charlie wasn't really my daddy. No one else knew that, not even Mommy.

There was a bruise forming on my cheek from Daddy slapping me over and over again. It would go away, but I could still hear what Charlie said. It wouldn't go away. _You little monster! You killed her! YOU KILLEDYOUR MOTHER! You don't deserve to be in this house!_ And so on. Was it really my fault? Just because I flickered?

Bella Age 7

Three years of Charlie was a hard thing to live through. He was never happy with me anymore. He still missed Renee. To tell the truth, so did I. By now, I had come to realize that I was, indeed, responsible for her death. She was afraid of me, when she saw me flicker. People do terrible things out of fear. And out of grief.

I had been dubbed the town klutz at the age of five, though it was hard to pretend I tripped over air. The people who saw my bruises weren't allowed to know that, though. If they did, they would take me away from Charlie, and then where would I end up? In some foster care program, prepped and prodded until I was one with the system. I would be much worse off.

The knowing never stopped. Every time looked into someones eyes, it was like, for a moment, I was that person. I remembered things that had never happened to me. I was privy to thoughts that I never wanted to hear. It was a nightmare, literally almost. My dreams were no longer my own. I had adapted the habit of always looking at my feet, to lessen the effect, but still I couldn't just stop looking at people. So the knowing, along with the flickering, continued.

I was thinking of these things as I walked home from school one day. Charlie, I thought was at work, so I didn't have a ride home. Not that I wanted to arrive any faster than I had to. But I was so lost in thought that I didn't notice there was something off about the entrance. The door was unlocked.

There was some noise coming from the kitchen, which is what brought me back to my senses. It sounded like Charlie, but he shouldn't have been home. And it sounded like whimpers, as if he was in pain. Or terribly frightened. I was very cautious, creeping forward silently towards the doorway. The scene in the room didn't make sense.

Charlie was on the ground, in a fetal position, with a broken whiskey bottle laying shattered over him. He wasn't injured seriously, only a few cuts and bruises that I could see, but he was staring up at someone in fear and hatred. That someone was a man, younger than Charlie, most likely a teenager. He was very pale, practically paper white, with reddish gold hair that reminded me of polished bronze. I couldn't see his face, but by the reaction he was eliciting from my supposed father, it couldn't have been very welcoming.

What I didn't understand was why Charlie was so afraid of this man. He was the police chief, after all, and he carried a gun around at all times. Even when he was drunk he had good aim and a hard swing. I had experienced it first hand. So the reason he was curled up on the floor was beyond me. And then the stranger pounced.

I was too shocked to scream, and even if I wasn't, I don't think I could have found my voice. The stranger had pinned Charlie to the floor, and broke his neck. Just like that, like a snap of the fingers. But it didn't stop there. The man didn't let go. Instead, his mouth latched on to Charlie's neck, and he looked to be... drinking. After what seemed like hours, but could only have been a second or two, he dropped the corpse and stood up. I didn't have time to think of trying to run before he turned to me. And when I saw his eyes, I found my voice again. I screamed.

I couldn't make the images stop. Even when I shut my eyes really tight, covered my ears, and sank to my knees in pain, they wouldn't stop. The same scenario kept flashing behind my lids, different people and places, different reasons, but still the biting and the killing. A woman in an alley way, with a young teenager running away from her, just escaping being mugged. A group of men that had been harassing a young girl, pushing her against a wall and starting to take her clothes off. A man the same age as Charlie, beating a woman into silence. It just kept going, it wouldn't stop.

And he knew all of their names, too. It was like a sick litany of names and faces, crimes and punishments. Then there was something different. Faces, pale like the man whose memories I was living. Four of them, young adults like himself. All of them were very beautiful, with features perfect and angular. His siblings, two men and two women. They were like in-laws, in a way. The smallest girl, and pixie like person with ink black hair, was latched onto a tall man. He was standing next to a supermodel worthy lady with long blond hair, like the princesses in fairy tales. She and the tall man could have been twins. The last one, a huge burly man, a big bear of a person with dark curls falling into his face, had his arms wrapped around the blond girl from behind. They all looked very happy, like a family.

The image changed, to two adults, a man and a woman. They were clearly the parents. The woman had a beautiful heart shaped face, with chocolate hair and eyes that could be very warm. The man, her husband, was blond like the twins, but he had more of a professional air about him. These two were looking back at the stranger with sadness, disappointment. The entire family shared only one real trait, their eyes. They were all bright honey gold, and I knew this was why they were so sad. The stranger had blood red eyes.

Finally, finally the images stopped assaulting me. My face was wet, and my throat hurt from screaming so much. I couldn't quite place what was real, now, with what had happened in everyone else's pasts. My brain was on overload, my thinking was haywire, there was something cold and clammy touching my legs.

I looked down and realized that the cold thing was Charlie. Somehow I had gotten closer to him, and now my legs were brushing against his arm. It took a second it to click, and then it hit me again. _He was dead. _I jumped backwards, trying to get away from the thought, but I just ended up running into the stranger again. From his memories I knew he was called Edward. I couldn't piece together events in the right order. Was the shock on his face a memory, or was it happening right now? I wasn't sure. All I knew was that there was darkness seeping into my line of sight. Or was this someone else again? What was going on? The last thing I saw before blacking out was a pair of haunting, sorrowful crimson eyes....

* * *

**_Well? Anyone? Come on, y'all know Baby Bells rocks._**


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